Tag Mein Twist

I’m starting to feel like Atlas if I don’t respond to phone calls and tags promptly. By all accounts, this is the last tag pending, and I want to inform you that I’m on sabbatical in the jungles of Borneo for the next six months with limited access to e-mail and voice mail. If you need immediate assistance, please tag the first person who leaves a comment here.

The Thinking blogger award / tag has been giving me sleepless nights. At first I thought it was dad’s snoring or gas buildup in my system that was keeping me awake, but later realized that asking me to pick five favorite blogs is like asking Draupadi to pick her favorite husband and expecting to get a straight answer from the quintessential bharatiya nari.

However, tags must be honored just like dinner invitations you can’t get out of. So, in the spirit of Draupadi seeking female companionship for intellectual stimulation after cohabiting with a bunch of mama’s boys, I hereby list five of my platonic preferences (in no particular order):

• Boo’s Baby Talk – Sometimes I’m not sure who the child is on this blog. Is it Boo or Ashu? Perhaps that’s the reason I’m drawn to it – for the author’s childlike simplicity, fragility and naïveté, delivered with a heady dose of humor. Billy Joel probably wrote She’s Always a Woman just for Boo.

• Mahanandi – I imagine Indira elbow-deep in garlic, onions and peanuts, as a pot simmers behind her on the stove and she cheerfully pounds spices for the evening meal in a mortar and pestle. In times of duress, it would be her lap I would seek to rest my head on because Indira spells comfort to me - like a soft, cozy shawl you’ll never throw away.
  

• IndieQuill – Remember the famous deli-orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally? I react in quite the same fashion as does Sally whenever I read Amrita’s writing. Except I’m not faking it.

• The Mad Momma - You know how you start an argument with your spouse at the kitchen table just because you want some attention? And he puts down his coffee mug, takes off his glasses, calmly folds the newspaper and starts to analyze your argument, breaking it down by points and dividing it into categories and sub-categories? And you realize with a sinking heart that he’s right, as usual, but all you really wanted was for him to throw his coffee mug aside and bop you like a bunny right there on the kitchen table? That’s how I feel when The Mad Momma gets going. I might not agree with her, but by the time she’s done, I reluctantly concede that maybe she does have a point after all. (Heck, if I could argue as sensibly as she does, our kitchen table would probably be on its last leg.)

• I Think – So similar are we in temper and temperament that if life were a Hindi movie, Lakshmi and I were probably separated in a Kumbh mela setting as children only to reconnect in the blog world a couple of songs, a few dishum-dishum scenes and one Mallika Sherawat item number later. And when we finally meet at that clean, white temple on the hillock you see in every Hindi movie, rose petals would rain down from the sky, conches would blow loudly and a mysterious breeze would cause the temple bells to start clanging wildly. We'd need that background score, you see, because given our reticence, the silence would be earth-shattering.
  Lakshmi, do you perchance have a heart-shaped locket with a missing half? Neither do I. What about a strawberry-shaped mole in a spot that only your husband can touch? Just checking.